Atlas Air (5Y, New York JFK) has operated a number of cargo charter flights on behalf of NCA - Nippon Cargo Airlines (KZ, Tokyo Narita) after the Japanese cargo specialist had grounded its entire fleet for maintenance records checks, Air Cargo News has reported. Cargolux (CV, Luxembourg), NCA's code-share partner, has also said it is ready to step in and assist.
Atlas Air Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial Officer Michael Steen has said that the ad-hoc charters have been operated on top of the two aircraft that the American cargo specialist operates on behalf of NCA under a long-term commitment.
For its part, Cargolux has said it will be providing assistance to NCA "wherever it can", without going into details. The carriers inked a cooperation agreement in November 2017, entering into force from the Summer 2018 season, covering services from Luxembourg and Frankfurt Hahn to Tokyo Narita. At that time, both carriers said they see the agreement as a first step towards a deeper partnership.
NCA is not expected to resume operations before July having grounded its entire fleet of eight B747-8(F)s and three B747-400(FSCD)s. The move came after discrepancies in the maintenance logs for B747-8(F) JA14KZ (msn 37394) were uncovered during a routine inspection. The cargo specialist had previously planned to restart flights on June 24 but said, on June 22, that the verification process would take longer than planned. Since then, no fixed date of the resumption of activities has been named.
"We anticipate it will take at least several weeks to check the operational soundness of the first aircraft and return it to operation. As for the remaining planes, as soon as their soundness is confirmed, we plan to return them to service sequentially," the carrier said on June 22.
According to the ch-aviation capacity module, NCA's trunk routes are services from Tokyo Narita to each Shanghai Pudong and Chicago O'Hare via Anchorage Ted Stevens.
